Did any of these inspire you? Create your own that feels right for you. Just don’t forget to include your sexual self in that list of resolutions. Happy, healthy sexuality is a part of a vibrant life. Give it the attention it deserves.

Of course a great way to bring new life and energy to your sexuality – Work The Conscious Sexual Self Workbook! Buy it on Amazon and start exploring in 2015. And for Santa Cruz locals, you can join Melissa Fritchle at Pure Pleasure on Jan 7th for the workshop, Your Sexual Resolutions for 2015.

Some of the couples I work with have been having sex that is more of an intellectual exercise than an emotional connection. There is a lot of strategizing, observing, fantasizing, worrying, critiquing, hoping. But there is not a lot of expressing. So sometimes, I invite them to experiment with sexual play that is consciously about showing their partner how they feel in the moment. They focus on using touch and body movements to communicate what they are feeling, not so their partner gets it necessarily, but so that they feel more connected to their own experience. Approaching sex from this new perspective opens up a lot of potential and can allow a broader range of sexual moods and therefore, ways of interacting. Things get less boring and more dynamic.

Most of us can easily imagine sex expressing love, lust, joy, curiosity, contentment. Combining sex with the sacred may lead us to imagine sex that expresses reverence or peace. These positive states are often the emotions that couples start with when they begin to explore sex as a vehicle for expressing emotion. But you may have also enjoyed thoughts about sex that stemmed from pride, power, vulnerability, need, fear, even anger. Are those ok for you to express with your partner? Why or why not? And how about more subtle emotional states, like doubt, loneliness, apathy, regret, irritation? Can you imagine touching sexually in a way that expressed and contained sadness?

Does imagining some of these emotions being included in sex make you uncomfortable? Thinking and talking about what emotions are welcome in sex for you can be a great practice. It introduces questions about our motivations to have sex, how we want our partners to feel about us when they engage with us sexually, and what emotions are comfortable for us, or not, in general. It also explicitly opens up new room to explore sexually, to be emotional selves, to have moods and variations, to let the energy of feelings blend with the energy of sensations to create something possible new and unique each time you come together.

I admit to being shocked that TV series The Bachelor, and its sister show, The Bachelorette, are still going with season 19! But it speaks to how focused we are on the dating portion of romance – the getting the partner to choose us and, so the story goes, commit. As a culture we have turned the search for love into a competition, a game, entertainment, something we can critique and, maybe sometimes, even learn from at a distance. But what we need are stories and examples of what happens after you have found each other. We need to watch people who can show us what it takes to be in love for the long term, how they wrap their mind around commitment, and how they are able to grow and thrive within successful monogamy way beyond the ring or the rose. I know some people who are doing that and here are a few foundational pieces they have in place.

The ability to see monogamy as a choice you make : You can’t do monogamy for your parents, or your friends, or you partner. You have to decide that this is what you want, for you. Identify your own reasons for wanting to be monogamous long-term. Maybe for you it is a religious or spiritual choice, maybe you value loyalty, maybe you see commitment as a path to personal growth, maybe you want to see what can happen if you focus your romantic energy on one person. Whatever your reasons, to be successful at long-term monogamy it is crucial to take responsibility for your choice and to let go of any resentments about other people “making” you do it. Monogamy is not the only choice. If you chose it, do it because you can own it.

A partner who rocks your world : This may seem obvious, but I see people again and again who say that they want to be in a committed relationship now and the person that they are with feels an ok match, so…This is a hard setup for long term monogamy. If you want to feel inspired to stay committed, you need to find a person who inspires you, a person who shares your sense of humor and adventure, a person who turns your body, mind and heart on in a variety of ways, the person who you want to leave the party with again and again. If you start out comparing your partner to others and wishing your partner could be different in this way or that, you may eventually find yourself just wishing for a different partner.

Understanding and familiarity with your own sexual desire : We live in a world of attractive people and no matter how appealing your partner is, you will still notice the other people out there. The romantic saying, “I only have eyes for you” is not realistic. Our culture makes sure you see and encourages you to be seen. Committing to monogamy requires you to be honest with yourself about this and to be prepared to shift the desire stirred up in the world back to your partner. You must learn how to respond to your own desires in ways that feel in integrity to you and this can only be learned by acknowledging that desire and attraction for others will not go away even when you find the one person you want to commit to.

Confidence to be yourself and to ask for what you want : Long-term commitment will be difficult at best if you go into it by trying to shape yourself into the person you think your partner wants. A fun part of early dating can be trying out new things, being introduced to your partner’s new world. But it is one thing to go to MMA fights a few times and another to pretend that you will be happy doing this every weekend for the next 5 years. If you feel that you are subtly dismissing the things you want and slowly letting your life or yourself be reshaped into your partner’s idea of the ideal, be cautious. You want to be sure your partner is committing to you - the self you want to be, not the self you can be if you have to. And you want to be sure you are committing to a life you can happily embrace, not one with creeping resentment.

We may not have a lot of TV shows about it, but long term relationships are hardly boring. They ask a lot of the people involved. So whether you are searching for a partner or have found someone but are wondering how to keep it going into the future, I invite you to think about these traits. You can develop them and they will help to have a strong foundation for the evolving adventure that is love between two people.

I had another client this month coming to see me ashamed and frightened because someone told them they were a “sex addict”. I am happy to support these clients, who often tell me about sexual behaviors that have become overwhelming or out of control. I believe that healthy sexuality should feel full of choice, not compulsion. We work together to re-create a sense of their sexuality that is safe and satisfying, and unique to them.

What bothers me is the way the label “sex addict” is being used. First of all, sex addiction is not an accepted psychological diagnosis. It was considered and rejected for the most recent DSM (Diagnostic Manual). So it is a label being used in a non-scientific context, often by people not trained to assess for psychological or sexual issues anyway.

What I have seen is “sex addict” being used as a new form of moralizing. In the past someone might have felt the righteousness of being able to openly accuse someone of being immoral or perverse in general conversation. Nowadays openly making that type of judgment is not as acceptable, but we can call someone an addict. Because we can claim that is not a moral judgment, it is a condition. But defining what is healthy or unhealthy sexual behavior condition is often a judgment call, especially when done by a non-professional.

The current popularity of ascribing all kinds of diagnoses to one another is probably troublesome to most therapists out there, at least those that take assessment seriously. I wish people would simply say, “I am worried about the sexual behaviors you are describing to me. Maybe you could talk to a sex therapist.” This feels honest and cleaner that using a label to scare or shame someone into seeking help.

I want to be clear - there are many people who suffer greatly from damaging sexual patterns and a loss of control over their behavior and choices. And I want those people to be encouraged to seek help. Because there is help for this. I just want us to be careful and responsible about the way we talk about other people’s sexual behaviors. Let’s not turn “sex addict” into the new scarlet letter, applied whenever we feel affronted or offended by someone else’s sexual history. Sexual compulsivity is complex and contains all the subtleties of the human heart and mind. Let’s respect that.

Melissa Fritchle is the author of The Conscious Sexual Self Workbook and a Holistic Psychotherapist, licensed in California as a Marriage and Family Therapist (Lic#48627). She has a private practice specializing in Sex Therapy and Couples Therapy. She travels far and wide, internationally and on the internet, to spread compassionate, sex positive, diverse, realistic sex education.